it fails to attract you by other means. I obtained the original
correspondence, I must tell you, from the office of the Detective
Police of London."

Jessie's face brightened. "That promises something to begin
with," she said.

"Some years since," I continued, "there was a desire at
headquarters to increase the numbers and efficiency of the
Detective Police, and I had the honor of being one of the persons
privately consulted on that occasion. The chief obstacle to the
plan proposed lay in the difficulty of finding new recruits. The
ordinary rank and file of the police of London are sober,
trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they are sadly
wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took into
consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper,
for availing themselves of the services of that proverbially
sharp class of men, the experienced clerks in attorney's offices.
Among the persons whose advice was sought on this point, I was
the only one who dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt
certain that the really experienced clerks intrusted with
conducting private investigations and hunting up lost evidence,
were too well paid and too independently situated in their
various offices to care about entering the ranks of the Detective
Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid discipline of
Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks
only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be
the men who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was
not taken and the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in
two or three cases. I was naturally interested in the result, and